


Soon The Bells Will Start

by Jiksa



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Christmas, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-08 23:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8867854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: Mikey has a slight melodramatic crisis in the middle of the night, Gerard has a herd of capsized sparkly reindeer in his hallway, Frank has five minutes to apologize, and Pete's got a brilliant solution to all this nonsense.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turps/gifts).



> Turps - You are just the loveliest person. Happy xmas to you. :)
> 
> Biggest thanks to [immoral_crow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow)/[LadySmutterella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysmutterella) for beta, handholding, being amazing. Thanks also to [akamine_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan) and for [prophetic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prophetic) for cheerleading, comments, and generous insights.

Mikey’s lived in Jersey long enough to know that East Coast winters are unkind at the best of times. What he’s never quite appreciated until he was marching through sludge in the middle of the night after working a double shift and then unexpectedly storming out of his apartment without a jacket two minutes after coming home, is that they can be downright punishing.

He supposes it’s _beginning to look a lot like christmas_ (courtesy of blinking lights and inflatable reindeer in people’s front yards), but the night is neither _silent_ (courtesy of Route 21), nor _holy_ (courtesy of the Slayer in his earbuds), and if _the stars are shining brightly_ , Mikey can’t really tell past the smog. Anyway, Christmas is for children and sentimental retired ladies and people whose lives aren’t currently falling apart at breakneck speeds.

Gerard’s apartment is only a twenty minute walk away from the one Mikey shares with Frank, but those twenty minutes feel like a fucking eternity with his flared girl jeans soaked to the knee and his glasses fogged over from body heat or fresh tears or, like, karma or something. The duffel bag he snatched from his bedroom floor before he bolted hasn’t been much help; it’s heavy and full of dirty laundry he had meant to take down to the laundromat last week.

He’s numb from the cold by the time he reaches the front door of Gerard and Lindsey’s new apartment. Gerard finally answers the door after Mikey’s third knock, blinking blearily as he rubs sleep out of his eyes and squints against the street light. His hair looks like a bird’s nest, maybe an old abandoned one that’s been knocked out of a tree after heavy winds. Mikey would kill for his own hair to do that on command. “Mikey?”

“Hey,” says Mikey, giving his brother a smile that’s hopefully brimming with Christmas cheer and good tidings and all that shit. "Uh, I thought we could have breakfast. Can I come in?"

“Shit, yeah, of course.” Gerard blinks again, stepping aside into the hallway and knocking something Christmas-themed and sparkly over on the floor. He frowns in confusion, trying to re-orient himself in the dim light. “Baby, put the knife down, it’s just Mikey. He brought breakfast.”

"There better be donuts,” Lindsey calls, tightening a bathrobe around herself as she ducks out of their bedroom. She looks similarly disheveled, but she gives him a hug that smells like _girl_ and sleep and Gerard. She’s warm and solid and doesn’t hurt; Mikey tries not to cling. “Mikes, it's four in the morning. Didn’t we give you keys?"

Mikey nods, ducking his head to wipe condensation off his glasses. He suspects his keychain is still on the hook by the front door he slammed behind himself. “No donuts,” he confesses, swallowing thickly when Lindsey’s eyes meet his and soften in recognition. Her gaze drops to the duffel bag beside his soaked feet. “Oh, honey.”

Mikey swallows around the catch in his throat. “Yeah, well.”

Gerard’s face falls. He looks entirely lost beside what appears to be a herd of capsized sparkly reindeer scattered across the floor. He doesn’t know when Gerard started caring about Christmas, but much like his newfound interest in personal hygiene, he suspects it's Lindsey's influence. “No donuts?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Lindsey hisses fondly, ushering them both towards the kitchen. There’s an alarming amount of twinkling lights on in the windowsills, considering it’s the middle of the night. “Gee, coffee, come on.”

Mikey takes a seat by their kitchen table, rubbing his frozen hands together as he watches Gerard sleepwalk through the act of brewing coffee. Lindsey opens a tin of homemade Christmas cookies and pushes it encouragingly towards him. She’s sleep-warm beside him when she sits down, her arm bumping against his ice cold shoulder. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Mikey says flatly, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie. He’s mostly stopped crying, but his face still feels snotty and wet all over. “Just need a place to crash for a while.”

Lindsey frowns, her uncharacteristically pale lips pursing. “Did you and Frank have a fight?”

The wet grunt that escapes him sounds nothing like the casual and convincing “Nah” he intends it to be. To add insult to injury, Lindsey hands him a napkin adorned with sleigh bells and mistletoe and candy canes.

Gerard drops something; it clangs against the kitchen tiles as he turns abruptly, belatedly getting with the program. “Wait, is something wrong?”

“ _Coffee_ , Gee,” Lindsey repeats patiently. “What happened, Mikes?”

“Nothing,” Mikey repeats. “I don’t want to talk about it.” His phone vibrates in his pocket again and he lets the call go to voicemail. He doesn’t want to talk about it with anyone, least of all over the phone. “I’m just going to get facial reconstructive surgery and move to a farm in Alaska and never see anyone ever again.”

“You already have an okay-ish looking face,” Lindsey soothes, stroking his back. “And it’s not really the right climate for farming. Or, I guess you could grow potatoes or beets or something hardy.”

Mikey shrugs, sniffling so he doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of blowing his nose into a festive holiday napkin. “I don’t mind potatoes.”

“You don’t really have the muscle tone for potato farming though. Potatoes are heavy.”

It’s not like Mikey can really argue with that, or like they’re even talking about potatoes, so he lets it go. He watches Gerard drain half a cup of coffee, coughing a little as it seemingly burns on the way down. He shakes his head like he’s trying to get his brain back in working order.

Lindsey sighs at him. It sounds exasperated or fond, or maybe both. “I’ll get you some dry clothes, okay?”

Mikey nods gratefully, wiping his nose on his sleeve again when she leaves. He stares into the cup of coffee Gerard puts down in front of him for a few moments. It’s covered in candycanes and the coffee smells suspiciously festive, like cinnamon or vanilla or something. “Maybe I can run away and join the circus.”

“You’re too lazy to join the circus, that shit is hard.” Gerard takes Lindsey’s seat beside him, leaning close. “Besides, you smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, and run like a girl.”

Mikey sighs, wrapping his cold hands around his mug. They’re still shaking a little. “Yeah, well.”

Gerard dips a misshapen gingerbread cookie into his coffee and considers him for a long moment. “Did you and Frank...” He takes a bite, then moves his half-eaten cookie around in lieu of saying actual words, dropping crumbs everywhere. He rolls his eyes when Mikey doesn’t finish his sentence. “I don’t know, break up? Is that what—”

Mikey snorts, not that it’s funny or anything. “God, not you too. _We’re just roommates._ I’m still seeing that guy Pete. Kind of. Hooking up, I guess.” He pauses to consider his words and clear the lump out of his throat. “Well, we were.”

“Okay… What happened?”

Mikey takes a big sip of coffee, sighing in relief even when it burns his tongue. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“You show up donutless at my house at four in the morning looking like death warmed over, Mikes. I’m gonna worry.”

“I’m sorry about the fucking donuts, okay?”

“Hey, calm down. I don’t care about the donuts.”

Mikey’s phone vibrates again and he yanks it out of his pocket and turns that shit off in a fit of unrestrained irritation. “That settles it, I’m gonna take to the seas and captain a motherfucking pirate ship.”

Gerard’s nose scrunches up. “That’s not an actual job, you know.”

“Fuck off,” Mikey tries to bite back, but even to his own ears it lacks teeth. He drops his forehead to his crossed forearms, slumping over the kitchen table. “Maybe I’ll just drown myself then.”

“Mikes…” Gerard starts before Lindsey’s footsteps re-enter the kitchen. His voice lowers and softens and does that _thing_ it does whenever he looks at her like she hung the moon. “Just leave them there, babe. Thanks. Sleep tight.”

There’s a quick smack of lips before her footsteps leave the room again. Gerard sighs a little; he’s so fucking gone for her it’s ridiculous. Mikey wants to throw up. “I’m gonna throw up.”

“Don’t throw up. Linds just brought you some really cool pajamas.”

Mikey looks up hopefully and shit, they _are_ cool. Dark blue flannel with neon red and green lightsabers. “They’re not gonna fit me.”

“Nah, she got them for you,” Gerard says with a smile, handing them over. “Part of your Christmas present from us. Merry Christmas, baby bro.”

Something in Mikey’s chest swells and throbs and presses so hard against his rib cage that it forces something suspiciously like a sob out of his throat. Clutching one lightsabered flannel leg in one hand, he burrows heavily against Gerard’s neck. Gerard’s always known what to do with broken things. Gerard won’t mind if he gets snot all over himself.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” Gerard says softly, stroking his hair and likely messing it up even worse than his own. His arm tightens firmly around Mikey’s shoulders. “But everything is gonna be okay, I promise.”

“You don’t know that,” Mikey laments into Gerard’s unexpectedly clean-smelling sleep shirt. He’s so used to his brother smelling like rancid armpit that it’s still a surprise whenever he smells human now. Mikey kind of misses it. “It’s pretty bad.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

“What? No.”

“Commit any crimes punishable by jailtime?”

“Of course not.”

“Get fired?”

“No.”

“Break anyone’s heart?”

It takes him a while to answer, although he’s pretty fucking clear on this one. He hopes he doesn’t sound as hurt and bitter and shitty as he feels. “No, definitely no risk of that.”

Gerard sighs heavily. “Mikes...”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then it’s going to be fine. You’re Mikey fucking Way,” Gerard says reverently, pulling back to look at him as though that should mean something. His breath smells like sleep and coffee against Mikey’s temple, stale and familiar and comforting. Kind of gross. “It has to be.”

Mikey nods and reaches for coffee and tries to pulls himself together. He should get out of his wet clothes and into his new badass pajamas and curl up under a blanket on the couch and mope forever. Maybe he’ll feel better in the morning, against all odds, or he’ll wake up to an apocalypse having swallowed him. At least it’ll give him time to pick a suitable escape strategy — captaining a pirate ship to hell still sounds more appealing than going back to his apartment. “Yeah, maybe.”

A ringing phone makes them both sit up. Lindsey comes into the room, extending the ringing device and mouthing _Frank._

“Don’t answer it,” Mikey hisses, flailing gracelessly as panic slams into him. He should’ve asked them both to turn their phones off the moment he walked into the house. That, and they should have all boarded a rocket ship heading somewhere off the Earth, just in case. “Don’t fucking answer it, I swear to God.”

“Frankie,” Gerard exclaims, positively cheerful in a way that makes no fucking sense at this hour of the morning. He gets up to pace casually around the kitchen, which doesn’t bode well. “No, it’s cool, you didn’t wake me. I was… uh. Up. Just. I was up. Yeah, that is a little weird, I guess. Hah! Look at me not sleeping. That happens sometimes, you know. Insomnia!”

He laughs a little too loudly and way too brightly. He knocks his knee into a kitchen cabinet. Mikey is staring daggers at him and contemplating reaching for an actual knife or maybe tackling him so he can drown the phone in the kitchen sink. “Oh, did he? I didn’t know that. Nope, he’s not here. No, I’m not fucking with you. Have I spoken to him? Uh.” He glances at Lindsey. “No? _No._ No, I haven’t. He’s…. Uh… he’s maybe gone to… maybe he could’ve gone to...”

Gerard waves his hand a little hysterically around like he’s looking for inspiration to end the sentence. Lindsey makes the sort of face you might make watching someone take a dump on the floor while you were unable to look away for some reason. Mikey mimes running away to captain a pirate circus in Alaska after getting facial reconstruction surgery.

Gerard just frowns, mouthing _WTF_ like any of this is Mikey’s fault. Mikey turns his right hand into a gun and aims it at his own head, fires off an imaginary bullet, and then points it threateningly at Gerard.

“Died?” Gerard says tentatively, scratching the back of the birds’ nest on his head. “Uh. Yep, looks like. Shot in the head. Very unfortunate. I’ve definitely gotta go now. Bye.” He throws the phone into the living room like it’s just caught fire and then covers his face with his hands. “Whoops.”

“Oh, fuck my life,” Mikey curses, incredulous. “ _Not answering_ was an option!”

“I panicked!”

“No shit!”

“Alright,” Lindsey announces diplomatically. “Mikey — shower, PJ’s, sleep. Your brother will call Frank back to say you need some space and that you’ll get in touch when you’re ready. Okay?”

Gerard mumbles, “I’m sorry, Mikes,” and Mikey can’t help but give him a stupid hug before he ducks into the bathroom.

He stands under the scalding hot shower until the water runs cold, the cascading water against his ears drowning out every sound in the world and the noise in his head for a few sweet moments of reprieve. He gets into his new pajamas and makes a feeble attempt at taming his hair into some semblance of order. He considers blow drying it, but there’s no point. It’ll be all fucked up by the time he wakes up anyway. He’ll straighten it in the morning. He doesn’t want to board a space ship to Alaska looking like a mess.

He’s wandering into the kitchen, entertaining vivid revenge fantasies about eating all the junk food in Gerard’s kitchen and smoking all his cigarettes and drinking all his soda and falling asleep on the couch to _Dawn of the Dead_ when he sees him.

Frank’s leaning against a cupboard in Gerard’s kitchen, wearing his stupid wool grandpa cardigan, soaking wet red Chucks and a stoic expression, all because Gerard is a terrible phone actor, a fucking traitor, and just too nice to bodily throw anyone out of his house at five in the morning.

He meets Mikey’s eyes with something that’s not quite a smile. His bottom lip’s held between his teeth. His eyes are unreadable.

Throwing up seems likely again.

Gerard intercepts him in the doorway to whisper, “They just want to apologize and then they’ll go. Five minutes, tops. Okay?”

“No,” Mikey argues, feeling on the verge of a temper tantrum. “ _Not okay_.”

“Mikes,” Gerard hisses, sounding frighteningly like their mother. “It’s _Christmas_.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mikey sighs. He glances around to find Pete seated in a chair by the window with a cup of coffee in one hand and a misshapen gingerbread cookie the other. At a safe distance from Frank, nice. “Fine. Can you give us a minute?”

Gerard squeezes his bicep, whispering ”Sick lightsabers,” before slipping into his bedroom and shutting the door behind himself. Mikey crosses his arms over his chest and glares expectantly at them both, leaning against the doorframe. _Angry_ seems like a better strategy than _hurt_ , all things considered. “Five minutes and counting.”

Pete clears his throat like he’s going to say something, but nothing comes. He and Frank look at each other for a short, horrible, meaningful moment and Mikey wonders when exactly they developed non-verbal shorthand like that. He can’t believe he’s been this fucking obtuse. Frank’s the one who eventually says, “We didn’t think you’d be upset.”

Mikey bristles, unable to help himself. “You’re actually fucking kidding me right now, right?”

“Mikes,” Pete starts.

Mikey cuts him off before he has a chance to say anything. “You didn’t think I’d be upset about the two of you fucking in my bed when I wasn’t there?”

“We weren’t fucking,” Pete argues, as though that makes any actual difference. They were pretty naked and all over each other when Mikey walked in on them. “We knew you were coming home. It was meant to be like... a surprise.”

“I was very much surprised. Thanks.”

“No, no, no,” Pete whines, looking genuinely guilty for whatever that’s worth. Which isn’t really much, considering. “It wasn’t like _that_... It was. Shit. Frank? It made sense when we worked it out earlier. We’d smoked a lot of weed, like _a lot_ , before you got home.”

That much had been abundantly clear the moment he’d opened the front door and seen the snacks and rolling papers all over the living room table, the TV playing the menu screen of Frank’s _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ DVD on a loop, the ashtray overflowing. Mikey had smiled to himself and foolishly thought _fuck, it’s good to be home_. “That’s not a fucking excuse.”

Frank shrugs, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. “It’s not meant to be an excuse. You were late coming home from work. We got to talking and… you know, thought you’d be into it.”

“What the hell?” Mikey snaps, unable to keep his voice down any longer. He doesn’t even care that the walls of Gerard’s apartment are paper thin. “How long have you two been screwing around behind my back, anyway?”

“No,” Pete pleads. “You’re getting it all wrong. Frank, come on, explain it better.”

Frank takes a slow, measured breath. He puts his cup down, which means he’s about to start using his hands and get all earnest and intense. Mikey might still throw up. “Look. You and Pete have been hooking up, right?”

Frank looks at him expectantly, one hand outstretched, like it doesn’t go without saying that Pete’s been staying over on and off since this summer. Like Frank hasn’t laid into Mikey about Mikey’s stupid grunting sex noises over coffee after Pete’s left for work in the mornings. Mikey glances at Pete, who’s watching them both intently. “Obviously.”

Frank nods, his impassive face lit up by the Christmas lights in the windowsill. “And _you and I_ —” he motions between them “—hook up when we’re really fucking hammered sometimes, no big deal.”

Mikey shrugs, struggling to hold his gaze. It feels weirdly confrontational. They’ve never talked about their few fumbled drunken fucks past the odd _sore all over lol how much did we even drink last night?_ and _couldn’t tell you, i lost count after the fireball shots_ texts the morning after. Now here, in Pete’s presence and in the dim light of Gerard’s kitchen, it feels like they probably should have. Pete already knows, of course, just like Mikey knows about his thing for Patrick. Mutually assured distraction. “Yeah, we fucked a few times. Whatever.”

“As far I was aware,” Frank says slowly, cautiously. “There weren’t any feelings at stake for you in either interaction.”

Mikey looks away and swallows. His cheeks feel hot, but he’s not about to get all gross and confessional right now. They’ve got three minutes and some spare change left of their stupid apology and then he can crawl under a blanket and wallow for days and get over it. “That doesn’t mean I’m okay with you screwing around behind my back.”

Pete rubs his forehead. “We haven’t been hooking up, Mikes, I fucking promise. We would’ve told you.” He glances at Frank for one long, sickening moment. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

It’s not like he and Pete have ever talked about it past _lol i accidentally fucked frank last night_ and _niiiice, how was it?_ and _pretty good. you still coming out for beers with us tonight?_ — but there’s something in Pete’s voice that makes it sound like Pete’s understood more than Mikey’s said out loud. More than Mikey’s understood for himself, possibly.

Which makes this all that much worse. “So you decided your first time would be in my bed last night? Great way to tell me. Hope it was good for you.”

“We wanted to make it good for _you_ , princess,” Frank snaps. “We had made plans to hang out and watch a movie, remember? Until you had to fucking stay late at work again. We just wanted to show you a good time when you got home.”

Mikey frowns, trying and failing to adjust things in his head. “A good time?”

“We thought maybe you’d like coming home to two guys who wanted to get on your dick.” Frank says, using his hands to motion unnecessarily towards Mikey’s groin. Now is not a good time to remember Frank’s hands anywhere near Mikey’s junk. “No big deal. We understand that it was a miscalculation.”

“A miscalculation,” Mikey repeats after a while. All he can think of is Pete naked on Mikey’s sheets, Frank hovering over him with his mouth wet and open against his jaw. How Frank had smirked at Mikey when he’d frozen in the doorway, his eyes hazy and dark and predatory. Frank’s looked at him like that a few times before, in the hazy middle of the night while moving deliciously slowly inside Mikey’s ass. He’d stupidly thought that was a look Frank only saved for him. “So you were naked in my bed… because you were waiting for me?”

“Yes,” Pete insists. “YES, Mikeyway.”

“Am I saying any of these things in English?” Frank asks the room at large. “I could swear this was English.”

Pete smiles at Mikey. “We just wanted to make you feel good, Mikey. Like, you were gonna come home from your shitty job and then you’d get naked and between us so we could take turns making you feel good. Right? Like a porn thing. Frank, tell him about the porn thing.”

Frank shrugs a little stiffly. “There was a plan, I guess.”

“Okay,” Mikey says slowly, willing his traitorous dick to stay unaffected. “What was the plan?”

Frank scratches his jaw and shrugs again, looking away. “You know. What Pete said. Get you off.”

Pete gives Frank a long expectant look, before rolling his eyes. “We were gonna tie your wrists to the bedframe and blindfold you and give you a massage,” he says, getting off the chair he’s on. His voice is lower as he comes closer, playful, like he knows they’ve turned a corner in this conversation. “Get you really relaxed and hard and then take turns eating your ass and sucking you off, keep you on the edge until you were begging to come.”

Mikey swallows hard, crossing his arms awkwardly in front of his groin. These pajama pants are probably the worst thing he could’ve worn for this, lightsabers be damned. He tilts his head a little when Pete comes close, parting his lips without quite meaning to. It’s not _like that_ between them, never has been, but Pete’s mouth has always been hard to resist. “And then?”

Pete cups Mikey’s jaw and turns his head towards Frank, then _bites_ at his neck. “Tell him, Frank.”

“Fuck you,” Frank says on a shaky exhale, meeting his eyes. It goes straight to Mikey’s dick. It takes everything in him not to grind wantonly up against Pete in search of friction. “Both of us, if you wanted us.”

Mikey’s throat feels tight, but he manages to a mutter a husky, “Yeah?”

Frank comes a little bit closer, just barely, like he isn’t sure he’s allowed. “Yeah.”

“We don’t fuck when we’re sober,” Mikey reminds him, his fingers slipping into Pete’s hair. Pete sighs happily and moves his mouth down to Mikey’s collarbones. “Unwritten roommate rules and all that.”

Frank shrugs a little. “I wasn’t sober when we came up with this stupid idea. Baked like a fucking cake, swear to God.”

“Okay,” Mikey starts, but. He doesn’t really know how to say this. “But you’re not high anymore now, are you?”

“No,” Pete says when Frank doesn’t answer, wrapping his arms loosely around Mikey’s waist and nuzzling his cheek. “He’s not. He drove us here.”

Mikey’s voice doesn’t shake, but it’s close. “Do you still want to fuck me sober?”

Frank nods. Slowly. _Oh._

“He wants to fuck you all the time,” Pete whispers into Mikey’s ear as one hand dips down the front of Mikey’s pajama pants to scratch his pubes. “He told me he listens to us fuck through the wall when I stay over. C’mon, Frank, tell him.”

Frank gives Pete a _look_ that would suggest Frank is regretting that particular disclosure. Pete has no tact at the best of times; smoking up with him may have been a tactical error on Frank’s part. “Once or twice.”

Mikey can hear the smile in Pete’s voice. “He’s lying.”

Frank scoffs. “You’re a dick.”

“And you’re a coward,” Pete teases. “Come on, just tell him you like him.”

Frank draws in a breath and gives Mikey a smile that does something stupid and fluttery to Mikey’s stomach. “Come home with us,” he says, low and husky and dark. He takes another step forwards, one hand reaching out to cup Mikey’s jaw. “Let us… apologize.”

“Say yes,” Pete whispers into his ear, his fingertips pressing into his hip. Mikey can feel how hard Pete is against his ass. “Say we can fuck you.”

The rough pad of Frank’s thumb swipes over Mikey’s bottom lip and Mikey has to squeeze his eyes shut and just _breathe_. “Yes.”

Frank’s kiss takes him by surprise, all teeth and tongue and no hesitation. The force of it knocks him back against Pete, but Pete holds him firm. Mikey’s hands come up to cup Frank’s face and then Frank’s fingers are wrapping around his wrists and it’s not like any kiss they’ve ever shared before. Mikey clings to him, moaning wantonly into his mouth when Pete gets a hand around his dick and starts rubbing him slow and sweet.

“Fuck,” Frank mutters against his lips, pulling Mikey flush against him. Fuck, Frank’s hard, too. “ _Mikes_.”

“Yeah,” Mikey agrees desperately, pressing closer. “Yeah, want you too. All the time.”

“You guys are so fucking stupid for each other,” Pete laughs into Mikey’s ear, and Mikey turns to kiss him, too. He can’t get enough of their hands and mouths, wants them all over himself as soon as fucking possible. “This is the best—”

There’s some noise like the world ending and Mikey blushes furiously when he spots a sleep-mussed Gerard standing in the hallway with his fingertips pressed into his eye sockets and his thumbs dug into his ears.

Mikey is hands down mortified. Frank doesn’t look far off. Pete, on the other hand, is laughing hysterically.

Mikey shoves Pete’s hand out of his boxers and makes a feeble attempt at righting his clothes and hair and, well, erection. “Gee. Oh my god.”

“I SAW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING,” Gerard shouts, looking every bit the part of someone who’s seen _way_ too much. Mikey is just going to go ahead and die of embarrassment as soon as logistics allow. “YOUR FIVE MINUTES WERE UP A WHILE AGO. SORRY, I DOZED OFF.”

Pete literally will not stop laughing, even when Mikey socks him in the side.

“Hey.” Frank nudges Mikey's hand with his own and whispers, “Ready to go?”

Mikey doesn’t quite have the balls to link their fingers together, but it’s a close thing. “Yeah,” Mikey says, meeting his eyes. They’re dark and soft in the dim light of Gerard’s kitchen. Mikey could get so hopelessly lost in them.

Pete slowly peels Gerard’s hands off of his face and gives him an obnoxious, amused grin. “Hiya,” he says cheerily. “Thanks for the hospitality. We’re gonna take your brother off your hands.”

Gerard kind of frowns and smiles at the same time, blinking his eyes open. It looks stupid and endearing. He glances between the three of them, to where Frank and Mikey’s hands are _almost_ touching. “Yeah?”

Mikey tries to shake himself out of it, to refocus his eyes and for the blood to leave his cheeks and cock. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry about Alaska after all. I, uh, everything’s fine. I’d give you a hug, but.. Uh.”

“Definitely wasn’t worried about Alaska.” Gerard grins. “Also, gross. Super gross. Keep your penis far away from me.”

Pete doesn't say anything on the short drive home, but he's staring at his phone with a quiet intensity that makes Mikey think he’s texting Patrick. When Frank reaches across the gearbox and links his fingers with Mikey’s and then _squeezes_ , Mikey can’t help but think that it kind of maybe is _beginning to look a lot like christmas_ and the night ahead of them looks downright _merry and bright_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas."  
> 
> 
> [tumblr](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/jiksax) | [email](mailto:ifckfairies@gmail.com?Subject=Hey%20girl)  
> 


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